ng seemed to frighten
them. One mule, for instance, was afraid of crossing small streams. Its
legs invariably began to quiver on entering the water, and down would go
mule and baggage rolling into the water. All the thrashing in the world
could not make it get up. We had to drag the brute bodily across the
stream, when it would jump up on its legs again. It was quite futile to
try and prevent that animal collapsing every time it had to go across
water. So that, on approaching any streamlet, we had to unload it in
order at least to prevent the baggage getting soaked.

The interior of Brazil--even comparatively near a city, as we were still
to Goyaz--did not compare in civilization with the lowest and poorest
countries of Central Asia or Africa. Humble countries like Persia and
Beluchistan or Abyssinia some ten or fifteen years ago were more advanced
than Brazil to-day. They had good trails on which a regular postal
service was established, there were regular rest-houses on those trails,
and horses or camels could easily be hired and exchanged at the different
stations, so that one could travel comparatively quickly. It was not so
in Brazil. Even if you wished to take a short journey of a few days from
a city, you had to purchase your horses or your mules, and have the
riding and pack saddles made for you at a high cost.

As we have seen, even in the city of Goyaz itself, there did not exist a
single hotel, nor did we find a proper rest-house in the 531 kil. between
the railway terminus and Goyaz capital. Nor is there one of these
conveniences west between Goyaz and Cuyaba, the capital of Matto Grosso.
Of course there were no hotels because nobody travelled, but it can also
be said that many people do not care to travel where there are no hotels.
In so humble and poor a country as Persia you always could indulge in a
delicious bath in every caravanserai, which you found in the remotest
spots all over the country. In Brazil you have to resort to the streams,
where the moment you remove your clothes you are absolutely devoured by
mosquitoes, flies and insects of all kinds--a perfect torture, I can
assure you. Once you were in the water, immersed up to the mouth, it took
a brave man to come out again, as millions of mosquitoes and flies and
gnats circled angrily and greedily above your head ready for the attack
the moment you came out.

We were travelling all the time at elevations varying from 1,450 ft. at
our last camp t